That Putin dude is creepy.
He is on the cover of Time Magazine as ‘Person of the Year’. Please. Guy is a total Napolean. Small man’s disease and right place right time. I am sure he is a smart guy, but come on Time. Russia is part of a ginat commodity boom and sweeping trend of wealth that had to trickle down even to this forever f@#ked up nation.
The stock chart says the same thing …undecided. It has been a wonderful few years for sure and the stock price is in no man’s land, but still in a massive uptrend.
I have traded the country ETF well in the past . I have no position right now.
My friend Tim Post, who I follow on Twitter , lives and works abroad in Russia. I trust his instincts on the country. He obviously believes…he lives there.
Here is his 2008 prediction on Twitter:
New Year’s Prediction: Putins resigns. Medvedev is President. Putin Prime Minister. Medvedev wins in March. Putin resigns as Prime Minister.
More important Tim …What would that mean? Are you long the market or short?
Tim also just twitted that 80 percent of the people vacationing at Val D’Isere Switzerland are Russian.
That’s some major wealth being accumulated and spent around Europe. That taste of wealth and the first true passing down to a younger generation of wealth as Time Magazine describes, could be long-term powerful.
I wish I could trust that political culture, it would be a laydown. The taste of wealth and freedom is intoxicating, but whose to say they don’t lock everybody up tomorrow.
RSX is the true ETF, TRF is an active management closed end fund, RSX tracks the actual Russia index.
TRF is lagging the index and does not tell the real Russia performance story over the last 2 years.. check out the chart
http://finance.yahoo.com/q/bc?t=2y&s=RTS.RS&l=on&z=m&q=l&c=trf
thx. on it
Good entry Howard! I also had the Russian ETF. Putin was the best thing to happen to Russia since the collapse of communism. Shit, some people need an iron fist. I covered Russia in the mid 1990s and the coutry was a lawless place…rules by gangsters without a code. Sure, Putin likes to use muscle, but at least the country won’t default and leave you holding the bag like Argentina did in 2001. Our notions of democracy and freedom are lost in translation, but I’m sure you know that.
Just happy TIME picked an actual person this year, not “You” or “Web 2.0” or whatever.
I think Putin is a solid choice. Let’s all remember that it’s not suppose to be an honor or a thumbs up to his policies. It’s who shaped and changed the world. While he’s proabably not responsible for Russia’s economic upswing, he has used it well in shaping up Russia from a has-been to a world power again.